One of my biggest sources of anxiety has been rooted in a feeling of never being satisfied with what I have or what I can do or what I have done.  I did not feel any personal worth, because I always felt as if I was lacking something.  Something about my personality, or character, or even sometimes a material thing.

I think this lack of satisfaction also led to a very negative internal dialogue.  I was always pointing out to myself what I was lacking.  Or telling myself the reason something did not work out the way I had planned was because I could not manage to do it properly.  I hate to admit this, but I also was jealous of what other people had that I did not.  My head was just so full of all this negative stuff that stemmed from not being satisfied.


This lack of satisfaction led to me develop a victim mentality.  Why did I get asthma at thirty-seven?  Why did I have to develop diabetes.  Why are they doing better than us financially, we work just as hard as they do?  I was constantly asking “Why me?”.  I became convinced that some cosmic force was out to get me.  I often said things were “not fair”.  I complained that life was too hard, and focused on my illnesses instead of positive things.  


Because I could not get satisfaction out of anything, I became very angry and resentful.  I would sit and dwell on all my perceived short comings, material and personal.  The more I did this, the more foul my mood would become.  I could go from being very quiet to a raving, yelling, not nice person in a second.  I am embarrassed to recall all those poor innocent people (doctors, service people on the phone, my husband….) I yelled at when I was in such a bad frame of mind.


At some point in the last few months my internal dialogue began to change.  I cannot say exactly when that happened, or even why it happened.  I do suspect some of it has to do with the counseling I have been getting since May, and also my depression and anxiety medications.  Maybe it has to do with the “home work” my counselor gave me, to find something positive in every situation.  I guess the why is not as important as the fact that it is changing. 

What has happened is that, probably for the first time in my life, I am satisfied.  With that satisfaction I have let go of much of my anger, and am not jealous of what other people have.  In the grand scheme of things, the things that satisfy me are, for the most part, not really all that important but at the same time they are. 

I have found satisfaction in being able to get dressed before noon, or if I can make a nice meal for my family.  Having a conversation with my daughter, or getting my blog done for the day.  I am satisfied when I have a good mental health day, or if I can keep from freaking out during a stressful situation.  

Bad days are not really all that bad anymore, because I can find something about that day to be satisfied with. I do not look at things as being fair or unfair anymore.  I do not sit around and ask “Why me?”  I do not look at what other people have and wonder why they have it better than I do.  


This does not mean I am this happy and perky person everyday.  It means I am satisfied.  My internal dialogue is one that does not put me down, or tell me that I am not adequate.  Instead it tells me that I did a good job, or that I did accomplish something.  It leaves me with a pleasant feeling at the end of the day. 



I enjoy the measure of peace that being satisfied has given me.  I feel less stressed.  I feel better about myself.  I enjoy being around other people more than I used to.  It is like my soul is quieter, and calmer and not as bone weary as it was when I tried to kill myself.


Being satisfied does not mean that life will not be hard at times, nor does it mean that I will always be in a good mood.  It really just means a peacefulness that goes all the way through me, fills me up, and flows into my soul.  It gives me an inner strength and confidence, that I have lacked for most of my life.  It just plain feels good to be satisfied.

A few months ago, I announced my son’s upcoming wedding.  The date of his wedding changed several times, and finally he and his fiance decided on a date in March.  

Due to my anxiety disorder, the only way I could fly out to where the wedding was going to be was to be doped up on stronger anti-anxiety medications than I currently take.  Although I was looking forward to going to the wedding, I really did not want to have to be doped up for it.  I thought that would make it so I would not be able to enjoy the festivities as much as I wanted to.  I shared this with my mother, and we had decided to drive across country to the wedding so that I could go without being medicated and so that my Grandmother could also attend.  It was a trip that I was looking forward to for many reasons.

While he and I have had some difficulties over the last couple of years, I really love him and it was important to me to be able to share my son’s special day with him.  I thought he wanted me there as well. 

While I was in the hospital this last time, I got a text message from my son.  He was visiting his future in-laws for the Holidays.  It seems he and his fiance had decided to go ahead and get married on Christmas Eve.  The reasoning I got was so that members of her family, who could not afford to attend the wedding in March, would be able to see her get married.  I was very upset.  Once again, I felt that my son was cutting me out of a portion of his life, a portion that I thought he had wanted to share with me.  

I also wondered why it was so important to include her family in the wedding, but to leave his own family out of things.  I thought there could have been a way to include at least some of the family members from each of them.  

My son and his fiance also posted something on their face book pages about getting married on Christmas Eve.  I thought that meant they had no problem with people knowing what they were going to be doing.  I was wrong.

After my son told me about his plans to get married on Christmas Eve, I called my mother.  I gave her an update on how I was feeling and told her about what my son had said to me about getting married on Christmas Eve.  I also told her that I was hurt by that, because I had really been looking forward to seeing him get married.  

It seems after I talked to my mother, she texted my son and gave him her opinion about rushing into the marriage and how his family wanted to be there as well.  The next thing I know, I get a text message from my son that was full of obscenities and telling me that I should not have “run my mouth” to my mother.  I never would have thought that my son would talk to me the way he did in that text message.  He did apologize later, because my mother told him that he should not have spoken to me that way.

From there, things went further down hill.  He told his fiance that his family did not want him to be happy, and we did not want him part of the family.  I have no idea where he would have gotten that impression.  He has spent the last year and a half, cutting his family out of his life, and we have spent the last year and a half trying to be a part of his life.  As for not wanting him to be happy, we love him, of course we want him to be happy.  

He went ahead and got married.  I have to admit that it did make me sad when I found out that he had gone ahead with the marriage without any of his own family there.  It was his choice though, he is an adult now.  If he can live with his decision to exclude his family from his life, I have no choice but to live with it as well. 

The way he has spent so much of his energy cutting me out of his life over the last year and a half has changed our relationship and not for the better.  I love that boy.  For most of his life I put him ahead of everything and everyone.  My world revolved around his world.  I thought we had a close relationship.  Now I realize that I was probably wrong about him and I having close relationship, and that I really messed up by putting him ahead of everything else the way I did.  So now, instead of being devastated, like I have been in the past, about not having him in my life, I feel at peace.

I will never stop loving him, he is my son, but if he chooses to continue to exclude me from his life, like it appears he wants to do, then I am OK with it.  I am not going to let it get to me like I have before.  I am no longer willing to put up with his disrespect just to be able to talk to him.  

I will get over being sad about being excluded from his wedding.  I will grieve and move on.  I wish things could have been different, but there is nothing I can do about it.  My hope is that he and his new wife will be happy together.